You can't of course copyright a title so if you are going to duplicate one a mere ten years old the least you can do is to be as different as possible. In the case of Secret Defense Jaques Rivette got their first in 1968 but there's not much chance of anyone turning out a film like Rivette so where that was a rambling discursive intellectual exercise this one is more a melange of John Le Carre and David Mamet involving cross and triple cross in the ongoing war against Islamic terrorists bent, as always, on making the rest of the world cry Allah. British television does much the same thing in its series Spooks', indeed one of your friendly neighbourhood terrorists here', Simon Akbarian, appeared in around 6 episodes of Spooks so presumably was able to phone it in for the big screen. Gerard Lanvin, more or less the only 'name' in the cast, is perfectly cast as the head honcho more than prepared to sacrifice his own personnel if and when required and it is, alas, required. Well worth catching.
Review of Secret Defense
